Ed McBain: The House That Jack Built

Words.

Unintelligible on the wind, carried brokenly on the driving rain. Words pregnant with the threat of imminent horror.

And then a single understandable word.

Sharp. Clear. Unmistakable.

Knifing through the wind and the rain.

No!

And a scream.

A terrifying scream.

The fire suddenly crackled and spit. New wood.

Father Ambrose shook his head.

Matthew watched him.

And now the rectory sitting room was silent except for a low steady hiss from the fireplace and the steady pelting of the rain on the cedar-shingle roof

“Did you hear just that one scream?” Matthew asked. “Following the word ‘No’?”

“Just that one scream.”

Ralph Parrish had told Matthew he’d awakened to the sound of voices arguing, his brother screaming. And then he’d heard his brother—

“Did you hear anyone shouting, ‘I don’t have them, I don’t know where they are’?”

“The only word I could make out was the word ‘No.’ The other words…”

He shook his head again.

“Father Ambrose… you said when the voices awakened you…”

“No, the rain woke me up.”

“But later you heard these voices arguing…”

“Yes.”

“… and went to the rectory door and looked out at the lawn…”

“Yes.”

“And then looked out at the beach, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“I’m assuming you could see the beach from the rectory door.”

“Oh, yes.”

“And there was no one on the lawn, and no one on the beach.”

“No one.”

“Was there anyone on the beach after you heard the scream? Did you see anyone running away from the Parrish house?”

“I don’t think I checked the beach again. Not after I heard the scream.”

“What did you do?”

“I closed the rectory door. It was raining very hard. I was getting wet.”

“You closed the rectory door…”

“Yes.”

“And then what?”

“I locked it.”

“Why did you lock it?”

“I was frightened.”

“But you didn’t call the police.”

“No.”

“You were frightened, but you didn’t call the police.”

“No.”

“Why not? You had just heard a violent argument, you had just heard a scream, you say you were frightened… but you didn’t call the police.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn’t want attention drawn to St. Benedict’s.”

“In what way would attention…?”

“There are homosexuals in my congregation, Mr. Hope. Our choir, our entire Music Department has a very high gay population. If there was some kind of trouble in the Parrish house up the beach, I didn’t want it reflecting on the law-abiding homosexuals in my parish.”

“So you remained silent.”

“Yes.”

“Until when? When did you go to the police?”

“I didn’t.”

“You didn’t? I was informed yesterday that the State Attorney intends calling you as a witness.”

“I was visited on Thursday by a detective from the Sheriffs Department. He was making what he called a routine canvass of the neighborhood. I couldn’t very well lie to him about what I’d heard on the morning of the murder.”

“Did he ask you specifically about what you’d heard on the morning of…?”

“No, his questions were general. He wanted to know if I’d seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.”

“On the morning of the murder?”

“Yes, and in the twenty-four hours preceding the murder.”

“ Had you seen or heard anything out of the…?”

“The argument. I told him about the argument. And the scream.”

“I meant in the twenty-four hours preceding the murder.”

“No. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“You didn’t see anyone wearing black, did you?” Matthew asked. “Anywhere in the vicinity of the Parrish house?”

Father Ambrose looked up at him.

Matthew knew that look.

Recognition.

Gold.

“Did you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“ Did you see someone in black…?”

“No,” Father Ambrose said.

He watched the Karmann Ghia pulling out of the driveway, watched it as it disappeared into the falling rain. And then he watched only the rain, and wondered why he had not told Matthew Hope about the couple he’d married on the day before the murder.

Just passing through, the dark-haired man had said.

It looks like such a pretty old church, the little redhead had said.

Good a place as any to get married, the dark-haired man had said.

Bright sunny day, possibly the last one Calusa would see this winter. Sat out on the lawn behind the rectory. Chatting.

Dressed almost entirely in black.

Black jacket and trousers. Dark blue T-shirt, could’ve passed for black. Black loafers, no socks. The sleeve of the jacket was torn just above the right elbow. Tall white man in his forties, with a scruffy three-day growth of beard, looking tattered and travel-worn as he sat in the sunshine asking his innocent-sounding questions. Took off his jacket, it was that hot in the sun. The little redhead with him couldn’t have been older than twenty, twenty-one. Long rust-colored hair, blue eyes, freckled face. Wearing faded blue jeans, pale blue T-shirt, silver-studded belt, sandals. Both of them exceedingly nervous.

Well, they were always a bit nervous, making a commitment like this made them nervous. So they always asked a lot of questions. Or commented on how pretty the church was — it was an extraordinarily beautiful church, a medieval sort of jewel settled snugly in the sand, facing sunsets that set it aglow with a light that seemed God-inspired. The stained-glass windows were , in fact, medieval. Crafted by sixteenth-century artisans, they had been transported from a little village in Italy, the gift of a Whisper Key parishioner who’d made a fortune in aluminum siding back in his native Cleveland. The mahogany pews had been fashioned right here in Calusa, but they’d been stained and waxed and burnished over the years since the church was built to create a patina that seemed centuries old. So, yes, the church provided conversational fodder for young people — and sometimes older ones as well — who were nervous because they were there to bind themselves irrevocably, one to the other, in the eyes of God. Which is exactly how many of them put it. hi the eyes of God. Or in God’s eyes. Variations on a theme. Seeking God’s blessing.

The questions they asked had very little to do with the ceremony they were seeking. They wanted to know about the weather in Calusa, those who were passing through, those who had spotted this perfectly beautiful little medieval sort of jewel of a church settled snugly in the sand. Was it always this hot here? Or this rainy? Or this cold? Or this windy? Or this lovely? Or they wanted to know where they could enjoy a good celebratory dinner tonight, was there a very nice romantic place anywhere in town, you know, candlelight and wine, where they could seriously and in solitude reflect upon the enormously serious step they’d taken and toast their future together, was there such a place in town? Father Ambrose usually sent them to the Orchid Room at the Adler Hotel.

So yes, there were always the questions, always the comments, always the brittle chatter to cover the nervousness.

This was an enormous step for a couple to be taking.

This was commitment.

This was a solemn ceremony performed in the eyes of God.

He had married them at four o’clock on the afternoon of January twenty-ninth.

The day before the murder.

Married them in the little chapel off the rectory.

Both of them on their knees before the altar.